Cool old tech that never caught on

[Niegs]

I guess most vehicles don't carry a spare tire there any more, but I'd love this!

I suppose the problem with it is that everyone has to have it or you'll get jerks boxing in people who don't have it?

[Fonz]

Segway

I was told it would replace walking.

[Torquemada 1420]

The car is great. This fascinated me as a kid. 2 techs in 1
- hydro boron fuel. AKA "zip" fuel.
- compression lift.



Also, arguably the most beautiful plane ever built. Thunderbirds made real.

[Rhubarb & Custard]

The radio newspaper. Dates from the 1930s, idea being a radio transmission would be received by a local (even home based) printing device which would transfer contents to a reel of paper and you would then review as with a newspaper.

It never caught on, it was slow to transfer data and to print, and it was expensive. But it was decades hence before the emergence of the fax machine as a 'thing'. The telegraphic printing machine goes back earlier again, but looking back with hindsight it's the radio one I'm more taken with

[assfly]

Mini-discs

[tabascoboy]

Mini-discs

I had quite a sophisticated MD recorder - "since recording on CD is for Pro's only". How little I knew...

[Kawazaki]

The Betamax would have a good shout. Superior in just about every way to VHS.

[Biffer]

OS/2

[Ymx]

OS/2

Good shout. I’d forgotten about it.

[Camroc2]

The Betamax would have a good shout. Superior in just about every way to VHS.

The Betamax derived Betacam platform became the broadcasting industry standard for twenty or so years, until digital came, so superior was it.

[Niegs]

The Betamax would have a good shout. Superior in just about every way to VHS.

The Betamax derived Betacam platform became the broadcasting industry standard for twenty or so years, until digital came, so superior was it.

Is it true that VHS won because the porn industry chose it over Beta?

[Jethro]

The Betamax would have a good shout. Superior in just about every way to VHS.

Except marketing, add 8 track to that list as well ... had a mate who brought one of those things, mind he also drive a P76 ...

[Tichtheid]

The Betamax would have a good shout. Superior in just about every way to VHS.

The Betamax derived Betacam platform became the broadcasting industry standard for twenty or so years, until digital came, so superior was it.

Is it true that VHS won because the porn industry chose it over Beta?

I always believed that VHS became the dominant tech because Sony chose it, but it seems that isn't true either.

Sony produced Betamax, but it could only record an hour's worth of tv, JVC owned VHS and this format could record two hours, eventually four to six hours. JVC also realised that if people wanted to record tv, they would rent films too, so they courted Hollywood. By the time VHS could record more than an hour it was too late and VHS was king.

https://legacybox.com/blogs/analog/vhs- ... g%20movies.

[Guy Smiley]

The Betamax would have a good shout. Superior in just about every way to VHS.

Except marketing, add 8 track to that list as well ... had a mate who brought one of those things, mind he also drive a P76 ...

The P76 was years ahead of it's time... lightweight alloy V8, McPherson strut front end,, rack and pinion steering, massive cabin with room for 5 and that famous 44 gallon boot. They were made for farming and the fuel crisis of the early 70s killed them off along with a host of others...

worth noting that Holden later launched the Opel Commodore with McPherson strut and rack and pinion steering to cries of Euro sophistication and exciting new tech.

If you never got the chance to get a P76 sideways under power on a wet or gravel road you missed a majestic and terrifying experience.

[boere wors]

Maglev

Wankel engine

Ground-effect vehicle / Ekranoplan

[Guy Smiley]

Maglev trains are reasonably common, if the context is tech that didn't catch on.

Likewise, the Wankel engine enjoyed widespread success until fuel economy issues sidelined it as a mainstream powerplant.

[Oxbow]

Childish side note, there was a poster about the Wankel engine on the wall of the physics classroom at my school. Hugely amusing to 12-year-old lads.

[PornDog]

only 1 hour tape length and Sony's prohibitive /expensive licensing did for betamax

[tabascoboy]

No-one's going to tell me this wasn't cool! With new developments in electric driven personal transport it was just too far ahead of its time...

[Kawazaki]

No-one's going to tell me this wasn't cool! With new developments in electric driven personal transport it was just too far ahead of its time...

That man's head is approximately the same height as the top of a wheel on an articulated lorry.

Death traps.

[Lobby]

Mini-discs

Mini disc was introduced in 1992. Although Sony stopped producing new players in 2013, other companies continued producing players until 2020. In the 21 years Sony were producing players, they sold over 22 million of them. On that basis I don’t think you can really claim that MD was a failure or didn’t catch on.

[inactionman]

I'm aware they still exist - indeed, relatively recently MoD were testing them out for boarding ships - but I'm disappointed there's no consumer priced Jetpacks yet.

And I never got to experience the delights of smell-o-vision, not sure if I should be grateful for that.

[assfly]

Mini disc was introduced in 1992. Although Sony stopped producing new players in 2013, other companies continued producing players until 2020. In the 21 years Sony were producing players, they sold over 22 million of them. On that basis I don’t think you can really claim that MD was a failure or didn’t catch on.

All I know is that the time in between buying one, and transferring all of my CDs to minidisc, the mp3 player was released and I'll never get back those hours again.

[Lobby]

Mini disc was introduced in 1992. Although Sony stopped producing new players in 2013, other companies continued producing players until 2020. In the 21 years Sony were producing players, they sold over 22 million of them. On that basis I don’t think you can really claim that MD was a failure or didn’t catch on.

All I know is that the time in between buying one, and transferring all of my CDs to minidisc, the mp3 player was released and I'll never get back those hours again.

[tabascoboy]

Mini-discs

Mini disc was introduced in 1992. Although Sony stopped producing new players in 2013, other companies continued producing players until 2020. In the 21 years Sony were producing players, they sold over 22 million of them. On that basis I don’t think you can really claim that MD was a failure or didn’t catch on.

They were very popular in Japan for ages, even now there is a pretty active reddit community for MD

I suppose you could say they were more niche, like reel-to-reel

[vball]

OS/2

I remember getting an IBM 3270 PC from IBM South bank to test out prior to launch. Being able to cut and paste between different windows (see what i did there) was mind-blowing. One window for PC, one for 3083, one for text ...

[Niegs]

Speaking of electric cars, they were around well over 100 years ago. But I think distances between places, poor electric grids, and cheap cost of fuel cars / fuel killed them?

[dabooldawg]

Mini-discs

Mini disc was introduced in 1992. Although Sony stopped producing new players in 2013, other companies continued producing players until 2020. In the 21 years Sony were producing players, they sold over 22 million of them. On that basis I don’t think you can really claim that MD was a failure or didn’t catch on.

They were very popular in Japan for ages, even now there is a pretty active reddit community for MD

I suppose you could say they were more niche, like reel-to-reel

There's also active reddit communities for anal gaping and laughing at people dying, so...